


I Had a Feeling (It Was You)

by Stella_Malodi



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Fluff and Crack, SHIP DARCY WITH ALL THE THINGS, Soulmate-Identifying Everything, shared emotions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-28 16:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6336259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stella_Malodi/pseuds/Stella_Malodi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The weirdest thing about sharing her Soulmate's feelings was probably that he didn't have any for the first twenty-three years of her life.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Darcy preferred not to talk about the Guide that was supposed to lead her to her Soulmate. If someone pushed, she usually pretended she had a String, which was easy to fake—“Yep, looks like my Soulmate’s in... <em>that</em> direction!”—but the truth was, she had nothing. Nada. Not a single thing to help her find the Soulmate who might not even exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Had a Feeling (It Was You)

**Author's Note:**

> So! This AU is a bit different from my other Soulmate fics. In this one, there are lots of "Guides" to help soulmates meet each other. Some people have first word tattoos; some people have an invisible string connecting them to their soulmate; some people share dreams; some people can't see in color until they meet... you get the picture. The idea is that they get whatever Guide will best help them to meet the other person. So, if a person's Soulmate is named John Smith, they won't have the person's name tattooed on them as a Guide.

Darcy didn’t talk about her Soulmate (or the Guide that was supposed to help her find him), but not everyone did. Soulmates were personal business, after all, and she wasn’t the only one to be a little on the secretive side. People with Words or Names didn’t usually share them, for example, while those with Symbols tended to share with _everyone_. Timers and Bands usually weren’t hidden, but neither were they shown off. And not all Guides were visible. Really, talking about them was a matter of personal preference.

Darcy preferred _not_ to talk about hers; if someone pushed, she usually pretended she had a String, which was easy to fake—“Yep , looks like my Soulmate’s in _that_ direction!”—but the truth was, she had nothing. Nada. Not a single thing.

Or at least, that was what she _thought_.

Then, on April 17th, her tumbling was interrupted by a sudden feeling of confusion, followed, after a moment, by suspicion and fear, ending with an overwhelming _need_ to get _away_ , to _escape_ , to—

“Holy crap, I have a Soulmate!” Darcy said out loud.

“What was that?” Jane asked absentmindedly, still focused on her Science!

“I have a Soulmate!” she said again as she jumped out of her chair.

Jane actually looked up this time. “What are you talking about?”

_“I have a Soulmate!”_ she said a third time, then physically dragged Jane away from her Science! and started dancing both of them around the room. “Jane, I have a Soulmate! I have a Soulmate! And he’s kind of panicking right now, and he’s super confused, but Jane, _I have a Soulmate!”_

“He’s pani—I thought you said you had a String Guide!”

“I lied!” Darcy sang. “I’ve never had _anything_ , but I do now, and _Jane, I have a Soulmate!”_

“I… nothing?”

“Nothing!” she confirmed with a grin.

“So, they just got born? That’s quite a gap.”

The grin faltered. “I guess they must have. But—” The grin turned into a slightly less giddy smile. “Jane, _I have a Soulmate!_ I’m not going to be Forever Alone girl! I have a person! A super- _young_ person, at the moment, but—” She stopped, her joy overwhelmed by a foreign wave of grief. “Oh.” She raised a hand to her mouth, and her eyes started to water. “Oh, no. Oh, jeez, what’s wrong?”

“Your baby Soulmate is probably hungry. Or tired.”

Darcy shook her head. “No, no way. I know what cranky feels like, this is…” She trailed off, and wrapped her arms around herself, wishing she could wrap them around her Soulmate instead. “It’s _grief_. Like someone died.”

“You’re sure?

Darcy nodded. “Sure as I can be. I mean, this is totally new. But, yeah. This definitely feels like grief.”

Jane pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Darcy smiled slightly and returned the hug. “I’ll be sure to pass that on, whenever I meet him.”

They stood there for a moment, with Darcy basking in the comfort Jane offered and hoping her Soulmate could feel it, before Jane started to shift.

“Science?” Darcy asked wryly.

“Science,” Jane confirmed. They let go of each other simultaneously and went back to the business of trying to break physics.

 

* * *

 

Darcy wasn't sure if it was easier or harder, having her Soulmate's (her _Soulmate's!)_ emotions so at odds with her own. On the one hand, it was _super confusing_ to feel two totally different things at once. On the other, it _did_ help her to sort out which feelings were his.

She tried not to let herself be affected too much. He was already so _sad_ , so confused and overwhelmed; he didn’t need any of those feelings to be doubled. It was hard, though, and it got harder.

Her Soulmate was having nightmares. _Every night_ , he had nightmares. She couldn’t see them, but she felt his emotions, and they usually led to nightmares of her own. It became harder to _not_ let his feelings overwhelm her when she, when _they_ , were only getting three or four hours of sleep a night.

If he’d been a night owl (or in the right time zone), it might not have been so bad—she could have just gone to sleep earlier—but the nightmares usually started between ten or eleven, and once he—they—woke up, there was no getting back to sleep, not for hours.

Naps and coffee were wonderful, but they weren’t sleeping-eight-to-ten-hours wonderful.

After two weeks of not enough sleep, a near-constant battering of grief, anger, confusion, and fear, followed up by the arrival of Aunt Flo… Darcy was not at her most patient. (Though it _was_ something of a relief to have the aforementioned emotions mostly covered up with determination, even if it was joined by a smattering of nervousness and suspicion.)

“Jane, are you _sure_ this offer is legit?”

“For the last time, _yes!_ Why would S.H.I.E.L.D. want to send us to Norway, anyway? What would be the point?”

“I don’t know, but I’d like to. It just… doesn’t feel right.”

“Is this _you_ , or is this your Soulmate?”

Darcy hesitated for long enough that Jane sent her a look that was both triumphant and pitying. “I know it’s confusing, having someone else’s emotions to sort through, but there is _nothing_ wrong with this offer. Totally legitimate.”

 

* * *

 

Darcy did not hold back with her “I told you so!”s when it turned out that the research opportunity was not, in fact, “totally legitimate.”

 

* * *

 

Darcy was able to talk their way out of Norway, onto a plane, into New York, and finally into Stark Tower. That, unfortunately, was as far as they got. The security guards inside the skyscraper were _refusing_ to listen to her, which was _really, really_  frustrating.

“If you’ll just _ask_ him, I can guarantee that Thor will be overjoyed to see her,” she said, jerking a thumb at Jane. “Doctor Jane Foster. If you ask him in person, you’ll be able to see the hearts in his eyes when you mention her.”

“Miss—”

“Is there a problem here?”

Darcy looked at the new speaker: a _ridiculously_ attractive man in a brown leather jacket, a pair of aviators in his hand, and a pack slung over his shoulder. The man’s eyebrows went up when he saw her, and he gave her a once-over of his own. When he got back to her eyes, he blushed, and looked away.

Darcy would have found this a little adorable, but she was distracted by the feelings coming from her Soulmate: surprise, attraction, embarrassment, and a smattering of self-loathing.

Her eyes went wide. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

He looked— _and felt_ , a part of her whispered—puzzled. (If she was right, there was a well-concealed dread behind it.) “I’m sorry?”

“Can’t you feel—” She huffed. “Happiness,” she said, then focused on how happy she was to see him, how _overjoyed_ she was to have _found_ him. “Sadness,” she continued, and focused instead on the destruction she’d seen outside. “Uh…” she trailed off, trying to decide what she should try to feel next, to _show_ him—but she was distracted by the wave of shock.

“How—? What—?”

She smiled and held out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Soulmate. I’m Darcy Lewis.”

He took it, and, sounding and feeling dazed, said, “Steve Rogers. It’s… nice to meet you, too.”

Darcy would have been happy to stand there staring at him for a _long_ time, but Jane interrupted with a cough. “Hm?” she asked, then shook her head. “Oh, right. Thor.” She dropped her Soulmate’s hand and turned back to the security guard.

“What about Thor?” Steve asked.

“We know him,” Darcy explained. “He gets heart-eyes around Jane. But he doesn’t exactly have a cell phone, and we can’t get anyone to just _ask_ him and confirm that we aren’t fangirls or something.”

He nodded, then turned his attention to the security guards. “Ask him,” he commanded, and Darcy—Darcy shivered.

She saw his ears turn pink before she looked at the ground, wishing fervently that a hole would open up beneath her feet. Why had she thought this ‘shared emotions’ thing would be in any way _good?_

Except, then she felt how flattered he was, how happy he was that she was attracted to him. He reached for her hand and squeezed it gently, reassuring her.

And, okay, yeah, still _totally_ embarrassing… but he had really nice hands.

He gave her hand another squeeze; when she looked up at him, he met her eyes and smiled.

 

* * *

 

“Jane!”

“Thor!”

“You weren’t kidding about the hearts in his eyes.”

**Author's Note:**

> You guys, guess what? As of today, I've been updating weekly for six months! And, holy crap, the response. I did NOT expect this. At all. It constantly blows my mind how many people have looked at my stories, how many people _like_ my writing, and... yeah. You guys are awesome. Thank you for thinking I'm awesome. And, as a little present-type-thing... I'm going to lock up my awkward rabbit and reply to every comment left on this fic. So... yeah. Happy anniversary! 
> 
> Oh, prompts! We love prompts. Prompts are awesome. Feel free to leave All The Prompts. We will get to them eventually. :D


End file.
